Guest lecture 11 January 2017: Samuel E. Abrams

The event is free of charge and does not require registration. Welcome!

Programme16.00 Welcome wordsAuli Toom, University of Helsinki

16.10 Lecture and presentation on the book Education and the Commercial MindsetDirector Samuel E. Abrams, Columbia University

17.00 Audience Q & A and discussion

Drawing on his book, Education and the Commercial Mindset (Harvard University Press, 2016), Samuel E. Abrams will discuss the divergent paths taken by education policymakers in Chile, Finland, Sweden, and the United States.

Writing in The New York Review of Books, Diane Ravitch described Education and the Commercial Mindset as “an elegant analysis of the workings of market forces in education.” Reviewing the book for Teachers College Record, Margaret Stange-Topkins called it “exceptionally balanced, meticulously researched, and rooted in a deep understanding of the historical, cultural, and social antecedents of the widespread use of business practices and norms in education.” Endorsing the book for Harvard University Press, Pasi Sahlberg termed it “a bracing assessment of contemporary education reform and its consequences.”

This excerpt from Education and the Commercial Mindset concerning Finnish education policy was published by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. For interviews with Abrams about his book, see this story by Laura Saarikoski for the Helsingin Sanomat and this column by Valerie Strauss for The Washington Post.

Abrams is the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In addition to Education and the Commercial Mindset, his publications include a chapter on Nordic education in Utbildningsekonomi: Om lärandets värde (Natur och Kultur, 2017). In recognition of his promotion of the understanding of Finnish education in the United States, the Finnish government in 2014 made Abrams a Knight, First Class, Order of the Lion of Finland.